


we few

by couldusesomebrassknuckles (ralndown)



Series: we happy few [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Friendship, Trans Male Character, and bookworm!webster, binder struggles, for now it's just, most of the squad will show up eventually, nice, skater!babe, tags to be added as plot actually happens, thats also an important tag, this is the trans au nobody else was writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-05-10 11:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14735804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ralndown/pseuds/couldusesomebrassknuckles
Summary: Heffron and Webster had been best friends since the first day of freshman year when David caught Edward nodding asleep during third block orientation.





	1. preview chapter

**Author's Note:**

> *throws 90% of canon and the real attributes of the men into a special drawer* but what if... they were trans?

“Web, you keep cryin’ like that and all the marks you make in that book are jus’ gonna blur into a big mess.”

 

“I’m not crying, Babe, the fuck?”

 

Webster lifted his eyes from the pages of his book to glare at his best friend, and cursed when the boy almost crashed to the pavement - again. If the kid were wearing more than a saggy pair of second hand jeans he might not have cared as much. After all, Babe clearly had way better balance than David, if the three years he’d spent drifting beside Webster on a skateboard had taught him anything. But, he was - only wearing a second-hand pair of battered Old Navy jeans with holes in the knees that exposed his already scarred knees. Babe’s broad freckled shoulders and the entire glory of his flat chest was out for the whole world to see that night. If Babe crashed it would be one bloody mess - one that Web wasn’t so sure he would know how to patch up or hide from his parents.

 

“And keep your eyes on the road, damnit.”

 

Babe turned his head, his unstyled ginger hair blowing softly in the breeze behind him, and stared back into the glowing sunset hanging beyond the road in front of them. His hair hadn’t been this long since they’d met when they were 15 - Babe crashing head first (literally, most likely) into the skater lifestyle and embracing the greasy look that came with it. But apparently this summer Babe was feeling nostalgic and sometime in july he’d stopped asking his mom to pull out the clippers and had let it grow again. Now, in April, it had grown to curl around his neck and over his eyes. When he was 15, Babe and his scrawny frame could pull off the unkept emo fringe, but now at 17, Web really wasn’t sure it fit him.

 

“You’ got your look on ‘gain.” Web almost missed what he said as a battered car whipped by the pair, dividing his attention.

 

“My- What fuckin’ look?”

 

“Yer ‘I’m about to cry into this book’ look.”

 

“I don’t have a look.”

 

Babe pulled to the curb and picked up his board by the tail, exposing the shredded deck - once littered with stickers from over a dozen different bands now just white rectangles over the neon orange that the wood had been originally. He pulled his hair back behind his ear with his other hand and looked back at David as he caught up. Web had once again put his head down and back into the book, pen in his mouth as he read - ready and waiting to make another contribution to the marks that littered the margins of nearly every page of every book the boy had read in the last three years. Babe watched as David stopped dead in the middle of the road, took a deep breath in and exhaled with his hand over his heart. Like a goddamn old lady watching a soap. Babe scoffed.

 

“Yeah, Web. Ya really do.”

 

Web scratched a few notes onto the top of the page and dog-eared it, closing the door to wherever he just was and lifted his head back up to stare at the freckles on Babe’s cheeks.

He coughed. Babe reached out to steady the other boy but Webster caught his arm and waved it away, finger still half wedged between the pages of his book. He dug his right hand under the hem of his t-shirt to tug at the chafing fabric constricting his chest. The soft blue cotton rode up around his arm to expose a line of skin and the band of Web’s (probably shark patterned) boxers.

 

“How long have you had that on?”

Babe tried to mentally calculate how long they had been out together and cursed himself when he realised somehow he had forgotten to check up on the boy even once.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“Web.”

 

The boy took - or at least tried to take - a deep rattling breath.

“Yeah, okay - fuck.”

 

“Jesus, Web.” In one quick movement, Babe shoved his board under his armpit, grabbed David’s hand and started pulling him up the driveway. “Lets get that off.”

 

Pressing the pin even Web knew by heart into the keypad, Babe shook anxiously, as though if the automatic garage door didn't open quick enough he would smash through with his bare hands. As soon as the door was open enough to fold himself under, Babe bent and pulled the other boy through into the dusty darkness. He practically vaulted the two feet of stairs, dropping the board off the railing like a sack of garbage and pushing open the door to the mud room - even though Webster was barely at the foot of the stairs.

 

“Ed, that you?” The voice of Babe’s mother pierced through the house - all the way from the kitchen no doubt, to beat against Web’s ears.

 

“Yeah, Ma.”

 

He propped the door open with one shoulder and he reached for something inside the house while Web gradually made his way to the door, being careful (for Babe’s sake, mostly) not to move or breathe to quickly. Babe leaned back out of the door to look for Web, shirt half hanging off his one shoulder and scooping around his neck.

 

The boys tumbled into the house, Babe frantically trying to pull on the shirt the right way (he had tried to put it on backwards) and Webster trying to school the pain blossoming somewhere below his heart and a bit to the left.

As quick as he dared, Babe tried to shove his idiot best friend up the stairs, but his mother caught the pair before they could get even halfway to the landing.

 

“[redacted]! How’re ya doing, sweetie?”

 

Web sucked in a quick breath and tried to make his voice as steady and airy as he could, his vision starting to swim and the bees in his head ready to explode in a blaze of rage and glory. “Great Mrs. Heffron.” He even managed a smile.

 

The woman tysked. “How many times have I told you, it’s Anne. You and Ed have been together long enough for you to stop calling me - that!”

 

“Ma please.” Babe huffed and started pushing at Web’s back again.

 

“Got it - I’ll leave you be.” She spun and walked back in the direction she came, a glint in her eyes she only got when Webster was around.

 

They made it up the stairs and Web had barely blinked before Babe was shoving a wad of fabric into his shaking hands and ushering him into the bathroom tucked in the corner beside the boys room. Before he shut the door Babe caught David’s arm to make sure he was listening to him.

 

“Take as long as you need. I’ll be in my room. You don’ have to knock.”

 

Babe had been defusing Web’s shutdowns since the third day of freshman year and at this point he had it down nearly to a T. They got worse after being misgendered like his mom just had and were usually preceded by a long day of wearing his binder for far longer than he should. The idiot. Babe loved him - he did, to absolute pieces - but sometimes he was just such a wreck.

Babe looked down at the book in his hands, the one Web had been reading, and flipped open to the dog-eared page. Part of a sentence near the top of the page had been underlined.

_“...me standing there by myself on the rocks in the dark, playing my violin for giant seahorses?”_

And in the margin beside it, Webster had written: **that’s a beautiful image. ***

 

Babe had no previous context, hadn’t yet asked Web what his new favourite book was about, but this sentence alone had him intrigued. He flipped back a few chapters and settled down on his unmade bed to wait for his boy to calm down.

 

Contrary to what his mother (and at least half of Aldbourne’s student body) had believed for at least two years now, Babe and David were absolutely _not_ dating. Not that like, they couldn’t, - Babe had known he was bi since he found the term and David _was_ a boy after all - but also, they _couldn’t._ Web was his guy, but he wasn’t his _guy_ , you know? It definitely wasn’t the trans thing, they just weren’t like that, that’s all.

 

With a gentle two tone knock on the door, Webster gently stepped into the room. The tension Babe hadn’t noticed in his shoulders was gone but the grimace creasing his brows had filtered back in with the sweaty binder folded in his no longer trembling hands.

 

“Better?”

 

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what sort of accent I'm trying to write Babe into but apparently it's happening. Why Babe and Web? Why not? Honestly I have no idea it just sorta happened and I love it.  
> also please bind safely kiddos, don't bind with anything unsafe and don't bind for over 8 hours if you can help it. the struggle is real but so are the risks, stay safe!
> 
>  
> 
> * quote from the book Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel which I highly recommend if you're a fan of dystopia and having your mind blown. and yes, thats an actual annotation I wrote in my copy because my Webster is roughly 87% just me projecting


	2. Buford Solves Math

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uh oh school stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me?? aggressively self projecting? noooooo

Web sat curled in his bed despite the hot summer weather, with his too-soft fingers curled around the spine of a world where the humanity had ended and time carried on. With a never ending flurry of voices shouting through the halls outside his bedroom door, he couldn't help but relate, just a bit. Sure he still had a roof over his head and internet access but he still felt like a scavenger. 

 

He hadn't come out to his parents, technically, but there was no way he was pretending to be someone he's not either. So he wore what he liked and Babe bought him a binder and somehow his parents were none the wiser. That didn't mean they couldn't smell that their perfect honour roll ‘daughter’ was starting to bite back. And so they bit down harder. His parents already weren't too happy with the fact that Web’s best friend was a boy, let alone Babe The Catastrophe, but when Anne started sharing her assumption that two two of them were dating they let go a bit. After Web cut his hair the night before the first day of sophomore year, they almost started to think he was a lesbian. To be fair, at first Web thought he was a lesbian, but Babe sorted that out pretty quick when he reminded him that he had never so much even had an inkling of a crush on anyone. So no, David really wasn't a lesbian, he was just a boy. 

 

His situation could be miles better (Babe had even gone as far to suggest moving in with his family), but he knew some kids had it a lot worse. He would take the shit until graduation, and then after his dad's high end job had paid for his first year of whatever university let his trans ass in, he was out. He knew he couldn't safely make any dramatic leaps until then. 

 

His phone started singing from where it sat charging on his desk, chaotic guitar and the shrill voice of Avril Lavigne filling the airtight box of Webster’s bedroom. He let it ring a little longer than he usually did to let himself smile. Babe had set his ringtone to Sk8ter Boy the moment he got his hands on Webster's phone to put his number in. Two years later, Web had never thought to change it. 

 

“Web, the fuck, what took you so long?”

 

“Nothing, I was just enjoying Ms Lavigne interrupting my quiet afternoon.”

 

Babe took a deep breath and Web already knew to prepare for what was coming. 

 

“ _ HE WAS A BOY. SHE WAS A GIRL. CAN I MAKE IT AAANYMORE OOOBVIOUS...” _

 

He waited while Babe got out his sillies, listening to his warbly voice charge well into the first chorus, before butting in to spare his family and their ears. 

 

“You done?”

 

“Yeah I'm done.”

 

*.•

 

When classes (see; orientation) broke for lunch the first day back, Babe bolted. He made it all the way from his math room on the top floor back to his and Web’s shared locker just as the latter was shelving his last book into the top cubby. It was only the first day of school and he already had a new book in his bag and probably two more in their locker. (Babe didn’t even have to check to know. He always had to have a book within reach, or he got a little jittery.)

With about as much stealth as a drunk pigeon, Babe stalked towards his best friend and peeked his head over his shoulder.

 

“What’cha got there?”

 

Web jolted like he had been shocked but remained relatively calm. “Babe for fuck’s sake.”

 

“Sorry.” 

 

He wasn’t actually angry. If Web were really annoyed by Babe sneaking up on him all the time he would take him aside and say so. In truth, Babe was the only person Web let into his personal bubble at all. Their classmates all know that if anyone so much as breathes too close to the kid you’ll have to answer to him. Even if Web was technically a whole year older, Babe protected him like an older brother, even though he really didn’t need it. 

 

“How was your morning?”

 

Sadly, because of the year between them and the fact that they’d always had different academic interests, their class schedules rarely matched up - if ever. This semester was nothing new. In some ways this was a blessing - if Babe had to drag Web out of another argument about the legitimacy of Shakespeare he might lose a limb. But they had a clear way of working together that didn’t really compare to anybody else. 

 

“Peacock still makes me wanna rip my hair out,”

 

“You’ve got Peacock for English again?”

 

Last year, Webster had been cursed with everyone’s least favourite teacher for his favourite subject. Like his life couldn’t get any more frustrating. He was lucky he could write essays in his sleep, with the amount that Peacock assigned and the obvious way he had something against one of his most dedicated students. Some teachers are just out to watch teenagers brains burn.

 

“Yeah.” David scoffed. “And at least until he switches seating charts again, I’m stuck paired with Cobb.”

 

“What’s wrong with Cobb?”

 

“Nothing, but I swear he hates my guts. Keeps glaring at me. Probably transphobic, that piece of shit.”

 

“Just ignore him. But if he does anything tell someone.”

 

“Yeah. Meehan doesn’t seem to bad, as far as history teachers go. Made us do like, an introduction thing but seemed pretty alright besides that. What about you?”

 

“You know the new math teacher, Welsh?”

 

“Oh this can’t be good.”

 

Babe secretly loved math. He was like, absolutely terrible at working through equations, but when he really got something… He once compared it to completing a trick on his board. Last year, Babe had gotten this hardass of a teacher with no patience for his questions and as a result he barely passed the class. Web knew that for this semester to go even remotely well for Babe, he needed a steady mark in math.

 

“Nah he actually doesn’t seem too bad. He showed us a clip from Phineas and Ferb as an introduction.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“Yeah. I guess it’s like. His Thing.”

 

As long as Babe likes the teacher, Web will be completely fine with anything. But seriously, Phineas and Ferb?

 

“What, uh, what clip?”

 

“The one where they’ve gotta figure out how many jellybeans are in the jar and Buford just eats them so the count would be zero. He gave us a lecture on like, applied mathematics and just being smart instead of always going the complex route. It was actually pretty great advice. I think I’m gonna like him.”

 

“At least  _ you _ got good teachers this semester. I’ve got Math and Bio after the break. I guess Strayer is the best Bio teacher we've got but I have no idea who my Math teacher is."

 

“That’s how it was for me! Maybe you’ll get Welsh too!”

 

“Well, I need more than some Disney clips to get me through Math, Babe. I actually need to pass this course. Does graduation ring a bell for you?”

 

The G word. It was still a year away, two for Babe, but if David planned to get the hell out of Dodge he wanted to prime up his marks for applications next fall. This math course was the highest level he needed to get his diploma, and if he was skimping on taking the higher level course, he at least wanted it to look good on his transcript.

 

“Hey! You’ve got me! There’s a reason I caught up to you in summer school. We’ll get you through this.” 

 

Like the secret nerd he truly was, Babe took it upon himself to complete the prerequisite Math course during summer. Partly so he could fit calculus into his course load later, but also so that come fall and the start of Webster’s Junior year, he would be caught up enough to help him through any problem areas. David really wasn’t sure if Babe wanted to be an engineer or a teacher or what, but he appreciated the help and pays the kid back in full with help on all of his English projects.

 

Babe smiled and reached out a hand to reassure the other boy through touch. An embarrassed blush rising in his cheeks, David let the locker swing shut and clicked the lock shut. 

 

“Lunch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had over half of this written since I posted the first part months back but thanks to a certain Peach I have so much drive to write it's all coming out :)))
> 
> \- the book Web is mentioned reading is still Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel and I still highkey reccomend
> 
> \- ofc Babe's ringtone is Sk8tr Boy. gotta rep that #canadiancontent but also cmon. it's perfect
> 
> \- Webster's canon hatred of Peacock? Check  
> \- seriously if you haven't read Parachute Infantry theres a whole section where he just. Goes off. He dreams of beating him up with a broom. No really (pg. 115 - it's a hoot)
> 
> \- Cobb is not transphobic and he doesn't hate Web he's just... confused. bad at saying things. he's working on it
> 
> \- *jams as many forgotten officers into teaching positions as I can*
> 
> \- Welsh is the bestest math teacher. originally I wasn't gonna keep him as the math teacher but theres that scene in Currahee where he talks about math so why the hell not. also. I thought of a fun way to bring in Kitty. Stay tuned for that ;)
> 
> \- I googled 'Phineas and Ferb math' to find the perfect clip to reference here and let me tell you. It was a blast. there's a fantastic song about triangulation that I may have to bring back later  
> \- related: Harry definitely has at least two stuffed Perry's in his classroom. He's a high school math teacher he's not uncultured smh
> 
> \- Babe is Such a sweet pls appreciate
> 
> as usual, come find me on tumblr (couldusesomebrassknuckles) we can yell about math. or phineas and ferb. whatever you like :)

**Author's Note:**

> Theres a whole world of teenage angst about to unravel as I both write and post this so ~stay tuned~  
> Characters yet to be introduced include but are not limited to:  
> Toye, Guarnere, Luz, Doc, Renée, Nix and Lieb  
> Each with their own special gems to add to the story and a chapter or two of their own  
> Excited yet? You should be!!
> 
>  
> 
> (because I feel like it's an important thing to note, I myself am trans (nonbinary specifically) and have experience with binders and dysphoria but it's still possible that I may get things wrong or accidentally step too far. If it ever becomes evident that I have, do not hesitate to call me out! This story is not just about being trans but its a very important part of the character's lives and stories and I want to do the best that I can)
> 
>  
> 
>  


End file.
